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Friday, April 30, 2010

It's Not Just the Life in Your dogs, It's the Dogs in Your Life that Count by Joanna Campbell Slan

Joanna Campbell Slan is the author of the Agatha-nominated Paper, Scissors, Death, featuring single mom and scrapbooker-turned-sleuth, Kiki Lowenstein. The second book in the series—Cut, Crop & Die—was released June 2009. Photo, Snap, Shot is now available for pre-ordering at Amazon.com.You can read an excerpt from Photo, Snap, Shot at http://tinyurl.com/yjaohfg

It’s Not Just the Life in Your Dogs, It’s the Dogs in Your Life that CountBy Joanna Campbell Slan
Recently, Entrepreneur Magazine announced its list of ten hot trends for the coming decade. Trend number ten-and-a-half on the list was pet-ownership.
Boy, I saw that one coming.
Here’s the scoop: Love me, love my dogs. It’s just that simple.
We’re a package deal.
Yes, I have a thing for cats, too. If my husband and I weren’t so allergic to them, we’d have several kitties. (Although I’d probably stop before I collected seven, like my friend Shari has.)
Seriously, if a creature has fur and legs, I’m all for it. And it doesn’t have to have the requisite FOUR limbs either. My Bichon-poodle mix rescue pup Rafferty only has three legs. When SPCA found him, Raffie was holding his right rear leg pitifully and not putting weight on it. The vet at the animal shelter thought the leg was broken. It wasn’t. Raffie had been left outside in the elements so long that the fur wrapped around the limb, cutting off the blood supply. Although the vet tried to save Raffie’s leg, it eventually had to be amputated. But you’d never know Raffie was one leg short. Trust me. People watch him run around, jump up, and never realize Raffie’s missing ANYTHING, unless they stop and do a paw count. As my son says, “Rafferty falls down, he gets back up. Hedoesn’t waste time feeling bad. He just enjoys life. Raffie could teach anyone a lesson in not feeling sorry for yourself.”
I can’t imagine a home without pets. Actually, I don’t think a domicile qualifies for “HOME” status unless it’s co-inhabited by fur children. My husband works long hours. My son is off at college. My life would be awfully lonely without my pets.
My dogs are my friends; the constants in my life. When we moved to the metro Washington DC area from St. Louis four months ago, I knew I had at least two pals I could rely on: Rafferty and Vicky, my BDF (Best Dogs Forever). They sat in the passenger seat for the 882-mile drive. They were model citizens at the hotels where we stopped along the way.
Okay, mostly model citizens. There was that one incident when the maid ignored the “Do Not Disturb” sign, and Rafferty felt compelled to play guard dog. He has a powerful “woof” but he’s really just a lover-boy. I guess when you’ve beenabused, you want to protect a family that treats you like top-dog. He sure does.
Vicky and Raffie rode beside me into my new life, and even as I cried a little to say goodbye to our home of 17 years, I knew that as long as I had my dogs, I’d be fine.
And I am.
Thanks in part to my dogs. They keep me sane.
Being an author means spending days and hours alone in front of a computer. Being a writer means you spend a lot of time with imaginary playmates. My dogs rescue me from myself by forcing me to return to the real world. Rafferty gets hungry around five o’clock. He’ll start nudging me, bumping my elbow, which makes typing really tough. Vicky, my little girl Bichon, takes up the challengeand starts licking me, which makes concentrating difficult. So by about five-thirty, I’m ready to take a break, even if I do come back and work more later. Writing is a very addictive process. If my dogs didn’t interrupt me, I might never, ever move from this spot.
Shoot, let’s be honest. If they didn’t force me to get up and go out, I might never have a REAL life at all.
Furthermore, I get my best ideas while we go on walkies. Long, long walkies. In hot weather and cold, in rain and in snow, on sidewalks and down paths. They sniff; I think. They explore; I plot. They piddle; I shout, “Eureka!”
So, the next time you see my byline on a book, go ahead and smile. Sure, it’s my name on the cover. But you know I had two furry co-authors. Just don’t tell my publisher, okay? Photos courtesy of the Connection Newspapers. Taken by Donna Manz.

Love your books and now I know why! Dog lovers (well, pet owners) are the best people and it shows in your writing. Have Photo Snap Shot sitting beside me, will be read in the next week or so, depending on how fast I can get through the two books ahead of it (due times at local library setting order of reading).

IT'S ALL RELATIVE

WOMEN'S SPACES WOMEN'S PLACES

CLOTHES LINES from 75 Western North Carolina Women Writers

CLOTHES LINES from 75 Western North Carolina Women Writers

I'm a lover of words and a lover of images.

The photos you see in the blog posts were mostly shot by me or by husband Donald. Or, they're old family photos - a lovely little benefit of being a part of families who recognized the beauty of preserving our history through photography.

If the photos are not ours, I have tried whenever possible to caption or link the photos to their source. This hasn't always been possible as there are a lot of uncredited images available through the internet.

My sincere thanks to the generosity of so many talented photographers who so graciously share their work for so many of us to enjoy, share and learn from.

IF you see a photo here that is a copyright infringement, please send me an email (barleykw @ appstate dot com) and I'll remove it immediately.

Books Read

Every year I promise myself I'm going to keep a log of books I'm reading. And I immediately forget. Then I remember again, but only after I've already read a few books, but can't be sure I'll remember them all and so - - can't bring myself to start the list. It's sort of like missing the first 30 minutes of a movie. I just can't watch it if I've missed the beginning. And being the anal ol' soul I am, I can't bring myself to start a list if I can't be sure it's going to be a complete one.So.I decided to keep a list during 2010 and found it to be a fun thing. Especially for a compulsive list-maker like myself.

FTC Disclosure Notice

FTC has a regulation which went into effect in December, 2009 which says, basically - "Amateur Bloggers to Disclose Freebies or Be Fined." Significantly fined. So. Since I happen to be an amateur blogger who sometimes receives free books, here's my required FTC Disclosure Notice: Dear FTC - Regarding review copies of books obtained for this blog. No other compensation is accepted beyond review copies of books - ever. When I do write a review, or opinion, the source of the book cited will be disclosed in the post in which the review/opinon appears. If you have questions, please feel free to contact me.